Subscribe to this blog

Follow by Email

Search This Blog

Surgery Chronicles: First Steps

This past week I took my first steps in a real shoe with my new foot. As with any first steps, I felt it worthy of recording:

I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but my surprise, it felt perfectly fine—no pain. There were a few tears, though. I got rather emotional after so many weeks of anticipation, of protecting and worrying about my foot and wondering if I'd be able to use it again, even though I knew rationally that I would. It's very different to experience the act than to imagine it. Now it was real. Of course, I'd been walking in a boot for a few weeks, but it's just not the same. The boot intentionally keeps your foot from flexing and bending, so it's being cradled and coddled, which means you get used to walking without really using your foot. So in my first attempts at walking, I still wasn't really using my foot because that's what I'd gotten used to.

Once I started walking around more, I realized I also wasn't stepping evenly with my foot; I was favoring the outer side of it, subconsciously avoiding the inner step where the surgery took place, where there was trauma. Now that I'm aware of it, I have to make a dedicated effort to distribute the weight equally throughout my foot with each step. I knew it would be an adjustment, but I really am learning how to walk again. And now that I'm doing it more or less correctly, it does get sore at the surgical site. But I think that's to be expected.

Speaking of sore, I had a consultation with a physical therapist yesterday. I never thought I would need physical therapy, but my doctor recommended that I try a visit after my last follow-up, when he said my big toe could be more flexible around the metatarsal joint than it was. Apparently I had not been aggressive enough with my manual toe exercises. Because I couldn't get an appointment for a couple of weeks, by the time I met with a therapist, my toe was already moving a lot better (thanks to my grueling efforts at forcing it past its comfort point). But I also got a lot more information, and an uncomfortable toe workout, from the appointment. The therapist had me do things I did not think I could do yet, like stand on just the one foot barefoot, and go up onto my toes barefoot. Each time I hesitated and asked her if she was sure it was safe. These things weren't easy or painless, but they were doable, and I didn't break anything. Then she had me attempt a task that is probably challenging for anyone--try, with my toes, to grab some marbles laid out on the floor and drop them into a container. I tried for about a solid five minutes and wasn't able to do it. It was very frustrating and I cried felt like crying. She reassured me that as soon as I did it once, it would feel easy.

There were more enjoyable aspects of the appointment, like a foot massage and a rewarding ice wrap at the end. I left with a list of activities to do on my own at home, including multiple calf stretches, which I didn't realize were so necessary until I did them with the therapist. When I thought about it, I hadn't really used my calf for heel-to-toe walking in over seven weeks. No wonder.

After a couple days of walking around in a shoe, I tried driving and found it to be comfortable enough. I would feel anxious about driving long distances or in heavy traffic, but for my short commute to work, I determined it was perfectly doable. So back to the office I went. And this is what I found pinned to my workspace wall, left by a couple of sweet coworkers:

I'll be back in the office for just a week and half before I'm out again for my next surgery and then working remotely during recovery. So I'll take advantage of the human interaction and faster internet speed while I can.

In the meantime, I've been a little too restless to read much, but I did get into coloring. I bought this book of mandalas a couple years ago when “adult” coloring was popular, and I spent about a month finishing one piece and then out the book away. But I needed something somewhat creative to do, so I pulled it back out. I've completed three pieces in the past week or so.

I upgraded from pencils to gel pens. #gamechanger

It's funny how seriously I take my color decisions, and about half the time I regret the colors I chose to put next to each other. But it's hard, because the mandalas are so intricately designed that it's hard to foresee the way everything will end up together until you've accidentally put red and green adjacent to each other a few times too many (there's nothing particularly wrong with this color combination except that it looks like Christmas to me). But the pictures always look beautiful in the end, so I think it's a good exercise for my overly analytical mind.

And speaking of my mind, I'm once again in prep mode for the next surgery, constantly making lists, checking things off, adding new things that pop into my head. I'm getting accustomed to using my new foot, less afraid of it each day and, dare I say, even pleased with it and happy that I went through all that I did. And if my last surgery is any indication of how this one should go, and there's no reason to believe it's not, I can relax a little on the lists and planning and just know that I will be in good hands, with plenty of support.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, here's what my feet look like now (I applied some filters so the incision line, which is still healing a bit, isn't so visible—in case you're squeamish):

Comments

People Liked to Read...

I alluded in my last post to upcoming foot surgeries I'd soon be posting about. I'm now 19 days away from the first one, and my thoughts pretty constantly revolve around how my life will change after that when I wake up from my "twilight" sleep after the first operation. In my best frame of mind, the scenario is like this: I'll spend a few weeks out of commission, getting some forced rest, spend a few weeks in a boot, limited exercise, and my right foot will be recovered. Then I repeat on the left foot and by fall I'm back on my feet again. That's the Twitter version. But the version that most often plays out in my head is more like a volume of books, with the details of every day painstakingly planned, agonized over, and wondered about. How will I make food? Bathe? Focus on work? Get the mail, take out the trash, do laundry? Will I be in a lot of pain? Will I go crazy during my long days isolated at home? Will people forget about me? Will I get the resul…

At the end of week two, I'm home on my own and feeling pretty good. But it definitely feels like time has moved slowly. Hopefully the coming weeks will go by a little faster, now that I'm set up for a routine and able to do more for myself.
First Follow-up
I had my first follow-up appointment last week, which I'd been looking forward to pretty much since the day after surgery. Possibly because I was anticipating it so much, it felt like it would never come. But it did, and it went very well. I got my bulky dressing and "upper foot" cast off, and I finally saw my new foot! Of course, it wasn't beautiful; it was still tinted orange from the betadine used in surgery prep, it was swollen and a little bruised, and my incision was still healing and had strips of medical tape running along it (I'll save a barefoot photo for a later post). But my bunion was gone and my toe was aligned! That was the goal, and it was achieved.

If this sounds like a very late new year resolutions post, that's because it is. I never quite finished expounding on my goals for the year, but I wrote 10 things down, so I figure it's worth posting. Plus, I'm going to have lots of cause to post more in the coming months, as I (plan to) chronicle my upcoming foot surgeries, so I may as well resurrect the blog now.
I started out last year's resolutions post saying, "This past year was one of the most challenging years of my life." But 2016 has proven to be a hearty rival. The year was heavily mixed with positive and negative events, emotions all over the place. The good: I ran again, I swam, I came back to yoga, I wrote a lot (just not here), I blossomed at work, I loved my family hard. The bad: I injured myself again and couldn't run, I gave up on biking (but later picked it back up), I floundered trying to find purpose, I distanced myself from friends, and I nearly drowned in my anxiety. But I tried, in…